Before and After: Behold the Transformative Power of White Paint

updated May 3, 2019

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Traditional living room with beige walls, brick fireplace, wooden cabinets, and ceiling fan, featuring plants and framed art. — (Image credit: Triangle MLS)

The “Paint It White” philosophy gets a bad rap sometimes, but it can be a great method for unifying disparate elements while emphasizing texture and form. In this home, white paint was used judiciously to update a living room fireplace, with wonderful results.

(Image credit: Stephanie Bryan Photography)

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This fireplace surround involves quite a few textures, including the red brick, and the white paint unites them all. The black fireplace cover now pops dramatically against the white, and the monochromatic fireplace is now the perfect minimal backdrop for an actual fire.

(Image credit: Sunny Circle Studio)

Sunny Circle Studio is responsible for this makeover, and before anyone gets upset about historical elements being hidden behind thick white paint, know that this home was built in 1989. In the words of the great Lorelai Gilmore, “Unless you think Kate Hudson is historical, it’s not historical.”

I don’t remember this quoteSpecial mention to the new wall paint, which here looks like a subtle dove gray, but has a bit more of a blue cast in the other reveal photos on Sunny Circle Studio.

Thank you, Sunny Circle Studios!

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